"A review from a casual Yu-Gi-Oh! fan."

Yu-Gi-Oh! Ultimate Masters World Championship Tournament 2006 is Konami's latest release in the long-running line of Yu-Gi-Oh! games. This is my first Yu-Gi-Oh! game, and I got this one because of reviews saying it was the best in the series. I'm a casual fan of Yu-Gi-Oh!, so I'll give you a review from a casual player. No super-uber-pro fan of Yu-Gi-Oh! review here. So, let's go on, shall we?

Graphics  4/5For a GBA Yu-Gi-Oh! game, this one looks great. All the card art is drawn magnificently with great detail and you can tell which card is which without ever having to put your cursor over it to see it's name. In the actual duel you get a birds-eye view of everything from the top. Whenever you duel, you know just what's going on because of the cool card animations they use. For example, whenever you tribute a monster, you know it's being tributed because it's card burns up. Although it looks good yes, the left part of the screen that displays your life points, attack and defense points etc. is very squished and compacted. It can sometimes be hard to find what you are looking for because of how close everything is together. Also, the game needs a better palette of colours to use. The main menu is orange (almost all of it is) and the duel screen is almost all brown. If you can bypass the boring use of colours, you'll be able to enjoy the great card art and card effect animations this game has to offer.

Sound  2.5/5Yu-Gi-Oh! games aren't really renowned for their amazing use of sound. This game is just another example of that fact. There isn't really much to the sound. The sound in this game is just well just there. It's not great, nor is it bad. The sound is overall very average.

Gameplay  6/10So, you're reading my review, and you come across the gameplay section of my review. Wtfz?! 6/10?! What are you, n00b?! You might say. But let me explain first before you start spamming me

I bought this game, expecting something really fun. Although this game has no storyline, it still is a fine game. YGOUM:WCT2006 is just pure Yu-Gi-Oh! the way the fans wanted it, and that's what they got. Although this game is quite fun, there's one thing that sticks out quite noticeably about this game: the inaccessibility. Konami raised the difficulty very high on this particular YGO game so that fans would have some competition. OK, so what? It's hard. Just go fight some crappy opponents. But the thing is, there are no crappy opponents. Each one is equally as challenging as the next, until you move up tiers in opponents. Alright, now there are harder opponents, just get better cards. But that's difficult to accomplish because you have to buy packs using Duel Points earned by defeating opponents. On the duel screen, everything passes by at a very fast pace. In mere seconds your opponent can have a monster out on the field with 3000 attack points and have all 3 of your 2000+ attack point monsters DEAD. And you don't even have a clue how they did it. Konami didn't even add any different levels of difficulty. At times you just want to give up because of the way the opponents' decks seem to be rigged to outmatch your deck in each and every way. Also, this game has no tutorial. So people with no past experience with Yu-Gi-Oh! will have the hardest time of their lives trying to learn how to play.

Replay Value 4/5What this game does for difficulty, it makes up with replay value. You can spend hours trying to create the perfect deck to own your little brother, coming up with strategies, and plans of domination. Being a strategy game, it's only expected that YGOUM:WCT2006 have a good amount of replay value

Conclusion? Pass / Rent / Buy ?If you're a casual gamer without any past experience with Yu-Gi-Oh!, pass. If you're a casual Yu-Gi-Oh! fan, rent it first and see what you think about it. If you're a hardcore Yu-Gi-Oh! fan, buy it.

Pros- Great card art; animations- No story to put off fans- Concentrates on the dueling- Good replay value- The most cards ever in a Yu-Gi-Oh! gameCons- Too hard- No tutorial- No difficulty setting- Too fast of a pace for newbies- Needs more attractive colours, too much brown

Reviewer's Score: 7/10 | Originally Posted: 05/06/06

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